Hmmm. When I was 25, I got thrown in the drunk tank in San Diego. To prove I wasn't drunk, I was doing hand stands and walking on my hands. They threatened to put me in the real jail if I didn't stop. Glad I wasn't in Italy.

A New York Times editorial does not fairly lay out both sides of the case for you. That's not what editorials do. Courtrooms do that.

If it makes you angry when Europeans call Mumia a "political prisoner" and name streets after him, maybe you ought to cut an Italian court some slack. They have far more facts available to them than you have.

Exactly. I lived in Italy for a while. I was in my mid-twenties. The first thing my landlady told me: if I wanted to stay out of trouble, then I should avoid doing anything that would identify me as an American.

then I should avoid doing anything that would identify me as an American.

Basically, Irene, that means do not put on Tommy Hilfiger-type clothes with the American flag, or such. The Italians I know (didn't live there, but have been there innumerable times) love Americans, just not the geopolitical policies or attitudes they cop. The anti-Americanism is worse in the North, which is more leftist, of course. Bologna is not a good place for American backpackers, I've been told.

As an example of what you experienced, Irene, when I was in Italy once, they mentioned the "scandalo" when an American marine pilot cut a skilift gondola cable in two with his plane, killing loads of people (like 20). This, of course, feeds into their idea that Americans are arrogant, reckless, and uncaring about the world. It was a big deal during the time I was visiting, but the next time I was there, people didn't harp on the topic.

(To show you how bogus the claims lefties have that the world started hating us after we invaded Iraq, it took place in the mid-90s)

Different country, different laws, different legal systems, different culture.

When you go somewhere else, even just across the border into Canada, things change.

Yep. Knox may or may not have committed a crime (sounds like not), but she was not a careful person at all. Being a drug-using skank shouldn't necessarily be criminal, but it sure isn't smart, and triple so overseas.

Peter, I liked the story that you linked, mostly because I liked the writing style, but it shed very little light on an extremely convoluted murder investigation and trial.

There's no doubt in my mind that someone, or even many, writers out there have a book written, just waiting to write the final chapter before publishing.

For those who like murder mysteries, you won't want to pass this one up. Unfortunately, this isn't fiction, just stranger than. There is a real person who was brutally murdered, and we aren't likely to know all those responsible for her senseless death.

peter, that Mudade guy is a godawful writer. My whole screen turned purple under the onslaught of that prose. He likes lists. "And then I met a Libyan. My first! And an Angolan!" My favorite part was his visit to the laundromat: "The Tunisian woman, who had the manner of a mother—but a mother who had not entirely abandoned the instincts of her youth—helps me start the confusing machine." What the hell does that even mean?

I had to give up after the how many ways the people in the house might have been fucking paragraph. It was like an SAT question: let's see, four people, one of them stabbed maybe before, maybe after, maybe during. Okay. Now, who's fucking whom, and where? From the front? Back? Back and front? Only they know and they're not saying.